The Hiking Thread

[O Really]

Great hike yesterday - we hiked the Lost Grove area in Sequoia park. It's not really lost, of course, but the trail through it has been deactivated so there's no trailhead marker or other trail markings. It's not closed, but is no longer shown on most maps. If you know it's there, you can take it, but the NPS doesn't make it well publicized, apparently to cut down on the traffic around the bases of the big trees. Interestingly, for such huge trees, sequoias are remarkably fragile about root damage, which is why the famous ones are fenced off.

Anyway, for a strenuous (steep hills, downed log climbing) two hours, we didn't see another person in a grove of dozens of sequoias. Particularly pretty when sunlight came through the forest and highlighted the distinctive cinnamon-colored bark. This park is bumper to bumper in July. We've pretty much had it to ourselves wherever we've gone. Major luck with the weather - it could have been snowing by now in the mountains.

[O Really]

It was a fine day in the mountains today! We hiked on the High Sierra trail, starting at Sequoia Park. It was an addition to our list of hiking parts of the "long trails" when we find them. We've done 8 states on the Appalachian Trail, 2 states of the Pacific Crest Trail, plus other regional trails like Mountains to Sea, Foothills, Vermont's Long Trail, Katy Trail, Olympic Discovery Trail, etc. Obviously we only clicked a few miles off the High Sierra trail's 72 miles, with a stated 10,000+ elevation rise. But what views - far and of some big trees. And for the first time, I drew my bear spray. Didn't have to use it, fortunately, but it was closer to getting used than I'd like. Damn bear sat beside the trail and was not impressed by our waving and shouting. We backed away back the way we came and he eventually wandered off into the woods. Keeping the bear spray at hand, we continued on, but never saw him again. Saw some mule deer, lots of hawks, marmots, and basically no other humans. And we got to do that on probably the last warm day for a while. Snow is likely at the high altitudes tomorrow. Thursday, we'll be headed off for the desert.

[GoCubsGo]

It was a fine day in the mountains today! We hiked on the High Sierra trail, starting at Sequoia Park. It was an addition to our list of hiking parts of the "long trails" when we find them. We've done 8 states on the Appalachian Trail, 2 states of the Pacific Crest Trail, plus other regional trails like Mountains to Sea, Foothills, Vermont's Long Trail, Katy Trail, Olympic Discovery Trail, etc. Obviously we only clicked a few miles off the High Sierra trail's 72 miles, with a stated 10,000+ elevation rise. But what views - far and of some big trees. And for the first time, I drew my bear spray. Didn't have to use it, fortunately, but it was closer to getting used than I'd like. Damn bear sat beside the trail and was not impressed by our waving and shouting. We backed away back the way we came and he eventually wandered off into the woods. Keeping the bear spray at hand, we continued on, but never saw him again. Saw some mule deer, lots of hawks, marmots, and basically no other humans. And we got to do that on probably the last warm day for a while. Snow is likely at the high altitudes tomorrow. Thursday, we'll be headed off for the desert.

Whoa, what kind of bear?

[O Really]

Whoa, what kind of bear?
[/quote]

Not a Chicago Bear.
But not a grizzly, either. Just generic black bear like the NC bears. He wasn't really aggressive, just didn't feel like moving and we would have had to walk within a couple of feet or so of him if we'd tried to go around. Nope. He looked pretty porked up for the winter, so maybe he was just lethargic and thought there shouldn't be any human tourists on "his" trail this time of year. I'm just glad it wasn't a mama with cubs.

[GoCubsGo]

Whoa, what kind of bear?

Not a Chicago Bear.
But not a grizzly, either. Just generic black bear like the NC bears. He wasn't really aggressive, just didn't feel like moving and we would have had to walk within a couple of feet or so of him if we'd tried to go around. Nope. He looked pretty porked up for the winter, so maybe he was just lethargic and thought there shouldn't be any human tourists on "his" trail this time of year. I'm just glad it wasn't a mama with cubs.
[/quote]

Whew, good. Black bear I wouldn't sweat it too much, you're probably right and he was in a food coma. Grizzly.....sweat a little.

I don't think anyone fears a Chicago Bear

[Vrede too]

Whew, good. Black bear I wouldn't sweat it too much, you're probably right and he was in a food coma. Grizzly.....sweat a little.

I don't think anyone fears a Chicago Bear

There are no grizzlies in CA, except on the state flags. So, black bear it is, and kind of an asshole bear.

Chicago, Cal and now Baylor - it's a bad year for bears.

[GoCubsGo]

Whew, good. Black bear I wouldn't sweat it too much, you're probably right and he was in a food coma. Grizzly.....sweat a little.

I don't think anyone fears a Chicago Bear

There are no grizzlies in CA, except on the state flags. So, black bear it is, and kind of an asshole bear.

Chicago, Cal and now Baylor - it's a bad year for bears.

Thought there were brown (grizzly) bears in the Sierras?

[O Really]

Been gone since 1920-something, and attempts to reintroduce have been rejected.

[O Really]

No real hike today, mostly because of howling wind. But we toured Joshua Tree National Park and had some good leg stretching walks around the rocks. Before getting here, my ignorance of the park was exceptional. I thought the park was the only place the Joshua Tree grew, and that it was relatively rare. Nope. It's true it grows only in the Mojave Desert, but not just in the park. I had envisioned these pretty long trees standing out like the pics of those single trees in the savannahs of Africa. But they're everywhere in the northern part. Part of what contributed to my ignorance was the uproar back the last time Trump shut down the government about some guys cutting one down while the rangers were laid off. Not to condone damaging natural resources, but unless the one they cut was some well-known tree in a conspicuous place, I don't know how they would have ever known one was missing or damaged.



Nevermind - I found another version of the shut-down situation, and it was much worse than just chopping a tree...

"While park rangers were furloughed and visitors streamed into the park unsupervised, vandals and motorists transformed the landscape. Car traffic created roads on previously natural terrain. Graffiti covered many surfaces. Campers cut through chains and pitched their tents in off-limits areas. Visitors even damaged and defaced the Joshua trees themselves. In some cases, they cut down the trees to make space for cars to pass."

[O Really]

Today we hiked in the Coachella Valley Preserve, which is on top of the San Andreas Fault, and has a couple of real desert oases with water coming up from a deep crack in the ground. Packed along a snack of dates right off the tree that we got from a date farm on the way to the preserve. And from the hilltop, we could look around at the valley and the bigger mountains that still had a topping of snow from a couple of days ago. Great hike - we're going back tomorrow.

https://coachellavalleypreserve.org/info/

[Vrede too]

Today was our second day in Kings Canyon/Sequoia park. We walked around and gawked at the Grant tree, then hiked through the north grove with many sequoias. Yesterday was the last day the road was open out to the end of Kings Canyon so we took the drive. Not too much hiking because of the time it takes to get out there and back, the fact that the sun goes down here at 4:50 and before in the canyon, and the not so incidental issue that all the trails deep in the canyon go pretty much straight up and down. But Kings Canyon is really magnificent - well worth the time/effort to get to it.

Conservation Group to Buy World’s Largest Privately Held Sequoia Forest for $15M

A Bay Area conservation group struck a deal to buy and to protect the world's largest remaining privately owned sequoia forest for $15.6 million. Now it needs to raise the money, according to CNN.

The San Francisco-based Save the Redwoods League negotiated for the past 20 years for the purchase of Alder Creek, a 530-acre hillside grove that houses 483 trees with a trunk diameter of more than six feet, including the 3,000-year-old Stagg Tree — the world's fifth largest tree, as the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

... "Alder Creek is the most consequential giant sequoia conservation project of our lifetime. It's the largest remaining giant sequoia property in private ownership, and a globally unique and extraordinarily beautiful landscape," said Hodder in a press release. "To fully protect this remarkable grove forever, we will need the public's help in raising the required funds by December 31, 2019. I am pleased to announce that we have a challenge grant in place to help us achieve that goal."

Save the Redwoods announced that an anonymous donor pledged a dollar-to-dollar match for every donation made before Dec. 31, up to $500,000. Interested donors can pledge here.

... Last year, the Save the Redwoods League purchased Red Hill, a 160-acre property in the Sierra Nevada's that is one of the two largest unprotected giant sequoia forests in the world, after raising $4 million, as CNN reported.

[Vrede too]

California redwood tree falls, kills hiker at national park

... Subhradeep Dutta, 28, of Edina, Minn., was walking on a marked trail just after 4:35 p.m. Tuesday at the Muir Woods National Monument Park, north of San Francisco, when he became pinned by the trunk of a 200-foot-tall tree....

The trunk measured more than 4 feet in diameter....

Wow, I've spent a lot of time in Muir Woods.

[O Really]

"Falling over" is apparently about the only thing that kills the big trees. They survive fire, aren't susceptible to disease, live through drought, but they do need their root footing to be relatively undisturbed and not overly wet. For huge trees, they have fairly shallow roots, and they intertwine with each other and with the surrounding trees. Apparently the sound of them falling has been compared to a toronado (or the cliched "freight train"), mostly because of the noise of the breaking root system and the colliding with surrounding trees. To get caught in a place that the tree actually falls on you is some seriously bad luck or awful karma for something. Whack9 probably wants to stay out of the big tree forests for a while.

[Vrede too]

"Falling over" is apparently about the only thing that kills the big trees. They survive fire, aren't susceptible to disease, live through drought, but they do need their root footing to be relatively undisturbed and not overly wet. For huge trees, they have fairly shallow roots, and they intertwine with each other and with the surrounding trees. Apparently the sound of them falling has been compared to a toronado (or the cliched "freight train"), mostly because of the noise of the breaking root system and the colliding with surrounding trees. To get caught in a place that the tree actually falls on you is some seriously bad luck or awful karma for something. Whack9 probably wants to stay out of the big tree forests for a while.

Yeah, it's hard to picture how two of the three people couldn't just get out of the way. We'll probably never see more details, but maybe Ulysses will come across them. I suppose that contributing factors might include:
Panic
Disability
Bravado
Miscalculation
Confined space
Awe
Conniving, stealthy, kamikaze tree
Unavoidable karma like Whack9's

[Whack9]

"Falling over" is apparently about the only thing that kills the big trees. They survive fire, aren't susceptible to disease, live through drought, but they do need their root footing to be relatively undisturbed and not overly wet. For huge trees, they have fairly shallow roots, and they intertwine with each other and with the surrounding trees. Apparently the sound of them falling has been compared to a toronado (or the cliched "freight train"), mostly because of the noise of the breaking root system and the colliding with surrounding trees. To get caught in a place that the tree actually falls on you is some seriously bad luck or awful karma for something. Whack9 probably wants to stay out of the big tree forests for a while.

Yeah dude fuck trees. Give me some great plains. I'm done with trees.

[billy.pilgrim]

Bears...

Back in my 20's I used to solo backpack quite a bit. Hiked the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne three times. Really spectacular, but bears could be a problem, since the park service tends to relocate bears from nearby Yosemite Valley and I understand some of them wind up just north in the GCOTT. One year I did the hike, I got to my favorite campsite to find an alarming note from a previous backpacker who described a rather harrowing encounter at night with a family of bears (mama and cubs). It was too late to push on to find another site, so I gathered a lot of firewood and lit a campfire that went all night. No bear problems that night, but a day or two later I pushed myself to complete the 4,000 ft high trek out of the canyon, because none of the campsites seemed to have trees suitable for safely hanging food. Finally well after dark I got to Tuolumne Meadows, and managed to wheedle the staff to let me purchase some food for a late dinner. Then, completely exhausted, I tossed my backpack on a picnic table - taking care to remove what was left of my food first. Sure enough, I woke up in the middle of the night to hear the sound of the pillowcase I had used as a food sack being ripped apart. Naturally the batteries in my flashlight were nearly dead so I couldn't get a good view, but by the moonlight it was obvious that a very large black bear was helping itself to what was left of the food. The noise woke up some neighboring campers and soon they formed a semi-circle and shouted at the bear. It started sniffing in my direction and took a few steps. The shouting increased and with a disgusted growl the bear lumbered off. I went back to my sleeping bag, but not before I realized I had stuffed a half-open pack of quite aromatic lemon filled cookies in my shirt pocket. LOL. That must have been what was interesting the bear. The good news was that my backpack was undisturbed. The food sack was history.

After that I switched to car/tent camping, and didn't try any more 14 hour marathon backpacking in the dark.

I know the feeling. I quickly decided to return the trash to the kitchen a couple of months ago - after rounding the corner to come face to face with the mom and 2 cubs enjoying my trash can.

Our bear experience is becoming more of a weekly thing lately.

[O Really]

Feed the raccoons instead of the cats.

[O Really]

Today's hike -
https://www.daytrippen.com/torrey-pines ... -day-trip/

A bit chilly/windy, but still a beautiful day.

[Whack9]

Today's hike -
https://www.daytrippen.com/torrey-pines ... -day-trip/

A bit chilly/windy, but still a beautiful day.

Beautiful! Glad you guys are having fun and enjoying life my man.

[neoplacebo]

Today's hike -
https://www.daytrippen.com/torrey-pines ... -day-trip/

A bit chilly/windy, but still a beautiful day.

Isn't there a famous golf course somewhere around there? Seems I recall a golf course having this name......just be careful around there. It's not out of the realm of reason that you might come in contact with a raccoon eyed anus mouth juvenile moron and pathological liar and serial golf cheater. He will have a large ass and dog shit on his white shoes. Danger